stuck in the middle...

yes, I'm an old relic who should embrace the new century

Am I the only person left in the world who prefers physical maps to GPS?

Went to a friend's house the other day, and discovered that my Melways (standard Melbourne roadmap) is out of date and doesn't have her street. I mentioned this to a few people - and they all looked puzzled and asked "But... don't you have a GPS?"

Yes. Yes I do have a GPS. And, thanks to my silly Melways, I had to pull out my GPS, dust off the cobwebs, find her street, and trust my GPS to guide me there while I blindly submitted to its knowledge, rather than knowing where the heck I was going.

Call me crazy, but I think there's something to be said for looking at a big piece of paper, and thinking "I am HERE, and I want to be THERE." It makes me feel much more in control. Especially since my GPS has been known to randomly go insane and decide I should be driving down a gravel farm track rather than the freeway.

I've found a reasonable compromise between my preference for looking things up on a map (and trusting to my own knowledge of the best ways to get from A to B) and the cost of updating a street directory on a regular basis (which is getting prohibitive now we're on the dole pretty much constantly) in Google Maps. If I have to go somewhere I haven't been, I'll look it up on Google and find out how to get there according to their directions, and then scribble them down with the necessary degree of detail on a piece of paper I can have with me in the car if my memory needs jogging.